Chaubey said the department was serious about providing safe drinking water to people in arsenic- and fluoride-affected villages.

According to him, there are 11 fluoride-affected and 13 arsenic-affected districts in Bihar.

The government is working on a ‘multi-village water supply project’ to supply safe drinking water to affected villages, he said.

The government would provide safe drinking water from the Ganga to villages affected by arsenic, an official in the department, said.

“First, the surface water (in the river) will be treated to remove harmful substances and then it will be supplied,” the official said. He said the treatment of groundwater containing arsenic was expensive and not sustainable.

The state government admitted early this year that high levels of arsenic have been found in the groundwater of different Bihar districts on either side of the Ganga river, posing a cancer threat, an official said.

Arsenic causes cancer of the intestines, liver, kidneys and bladder as well as gangrene.

People in several Bihar villages are suffering from bone deformation and a variety of skin problems.